The Smell Before Rain
by Stacey Verda
Summary: Rewrite of 2.22. Cassidy doesn't blow up the plane and Logan's rescue is a touch more heroic.


_Meet me on the roof._

Logan reads it once, twice, checks the number but already knows who sent it. It's Veronica, has to be, and if she's talking to him now, something must be wrong. Really wrong. He stalks to the elevator and punches the button. After five seconds pass without the doors sliding open, he darts to the stairs and sprints to the roof, praying with each footfall that Veronica's okay, that when he steps into the crisp night air, breathing heavy and ready to take down whoever it is that would even _think_ about touching her, she'll be standing there, perfectly safe, laughing at the conclusions he's hurdling to.

But when are Logan's prayers ever answered?

No, of course she's shivering in the dark, losing a three-way staring contest with a loaded gun and a boy she just discovered is a rapist—_her_ rapist—and a murderer a few times over. She's repeating six words in her head.

_I am not going to die._

Veronica wants to make sure that it sticks. Because despite the late-night ache of everything that has gone so very wrong in her life, no matter how many sleepless hours she's passed imagining the empty space between the Coronado Bridge and the Pacific Ocean, she has no interest in dying. She's eighteen. She just graduated from high school. She has plans, dreams, ideas that this broken boy can't break. She won't let him.

And anyway, it would be ridiculous to die now, from gunpowder and metal and a shadow's trigger finger, when she's survived everything else.

Logan softly presses the door closed, figuring that a surprise attack is his only hope against a gun-wielding Beaver. _And while we're on the subject, why the _fuck_ is _Beaver _pointing a gun at Veronica? _Logan would think that after a certain point, he'd quit being so shocked by the crazy _shit_ that punctuates his life in sunny Neptune, but it still feels like one of Weevil's punches to the stomach each time he realizes that the surface hardly ever mirrors what lurks underneath.

"You couldn't do this the easy way? You know Aaron Echolls is staying here. What do you want to bet that I can get him convicted for the death of this teenage girl?"

Logan's lungs quit working, his heart stops pumping, the blood rushing through his veins comes to a screeching halt. "_No!_" The word tumbles from his mouth before he even remembers thinking it. Better scratch that surprise attack.

She doesn't notice Logan until Beaver does. And she can't get herself to think, talk, _move _until a bullet bounces off the stair doors, two feet above Logan's left shoulder, because _he came for me_. Logan dives behind a skylight and her brain warps into hyper speed.

Her taser is no longer in her possession. She's completely unarmed. All Veronica has is Logan, and at the moment there's a gun aimed in his general direction. So she does the only thing she can come up with: she jumps on Beaver's back.

He gives a surprised yelp and his knees buckle. As they tumble to the ground, she realizes that her plan has a few major flaws: sure, Beaver is no longer pointing the gun at Logan, but it's still clenched in his fist, Veronica's still missing her taser, and even if she is scrappy and Beaver's more skinny than muscle, she has no chance of doing whatever it is she thought throwing herself on him would accomplish. Flipping himself on top of her, she cries out as the side of her face scrapes against cold gravel and cement. He twists her arm behind her back and it feels like it's twenty degrees away from snapping in half.

But Logan's on them as soon as they hit the ground, prying the fingers off Veronica's elbow and yanking him up by the collar of his shirt. His fist smashes against Beaver's nose, harder than he's ever let himself before, and he hears the definite crack of it breaking. Blood immediately gushes from his nostrils, streaming past his lips and soaking into Logan's knuckles. Logan winds up again but a deafening bang, the sharp sting of gunpowder and something that feels a million times worse than one of Weevil's cheap shots to the gut has him staggering backwards.

"_Logan!_" she screams, and now it's Veronica's turn for her lungs to quit, her heart to stop pumping, the blood in her veins coming to a screeching halt.

But he only stops for a second, and then the adrenaline escalating his heart and the memory of a gun staring Veronica down has him lurching forward, tearing his fist through flesh and cartilage. Logan finally pushes him way when he finds it hard to stay standing, when he has a difficult time discerning the outline of Beaver's crumpled face from the starless sky slowly enveloping the edges of his vision.

Beaver stumbles, gingerly pressing a finger to his bloody nose, and the gun in his other hand falls to the ground, sharp and echoing in the too-quiet night.

"I never…" He shudders, and it takes Veronica a second to notice the tears flowing freely over his raw cheeks. "I didn't want to hurt everyone. I just… I just wanted to forget it ever happened. But they wouldn't let me. I just wanted it all to go _away_." His voice breaks on the last word and a rough sob rips from his chest. He seems so far away from the cold-blooded killer he was trying to be ten minutes ago, so much more like the lost boy she knows he must be. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand and it's so him, so _Beaver_, that Veronica's suddenly swallowing hard.

He pulls himself onto the ledge, casts a blank glance below and then turns to Veronica, Logan swaying slightly next to her.

"Would you…" He sniffs, drags his hand across his nose again. "Tell… tell Mac I'm sorry. Tell her…" He sobs again, wraps his arms around himself and takes a deep breath.

"Tell her yourself." Veronica responds quietly, grabbing Logan's arm to keep him from falling.

A laugh, short and completely humorless, forces itself from Beaver's lips. He shakes his head and squeezes himself tighter, lines his toes over the edge.

"Beaver, _no_!" Logan yells, gripping the soft fingers that have slipped between his, locking his knees so he doesn't collapse.

He looks back, another sob tearing through his body. "My _name_ is _Cassidy_."

And then he's gone, a car alarm slicing through the night a few seconds later.

"L-Logan." Veronica half-sobs, tearing her gaze from the spot Beav-_Cassidy_ once occupied. And the second she points out, horrified, the sticky, bloody hole in his abdomen is the second it feels like there's a sticky, bloody hole in his abdomen. He glances in concern at the black mess seeping into his shirt. _It matches the one in my heart_, he faintly observes, then crumples to the ground with a soft moan and strangled "_Veronica_." She manages to break his fall, gently lowering his head to the ground and kneeling beside him.

Her hands grope blindly for her phone, but she has no idea what happened to it so she slips his from his jean pocket and dials 911. When she hears the click of someone answering, the words automatically rush out, as if the quicker she speaks the faster they'll get here and fix everything.

"My-my name is Veronica. Veronica Mars. And Logan just got shot. By Beav-_Cassidy_. Cassidy Casablancas, he was responsible for the bus crash. And he just jumped off the roof and landed on a car and Logan's shot and he's bleeding."

"Okay." The woman's voice is too composed for what just happened. "I need you to take a deep breath and give yourself a second to calm down."

"Did you not hear me?" She's crying now, tears slipping past eyelashes and her nose dripping onto her lips. She wipes her face with her sleeve, surprised that it comes back bloody. "Logan was_ shot_. There is a fucking _bullet_ in his stomach."

"Can you please tell me your location?"

Veronica wants to scream, but instead she takes a deep breath like she was told and answers, "The Neptune Grand. On the roof. Hurry, please, please hurry."

"An ambulance will be there shortly."

"Wait! What-what do I do? Logan was shot, what should I do?"

"Apply pressure to the wound. Make sure he does not lose consciousness."

"Okay. Okay, please hurry, thank you." Veronica snaps the phone shut, drops it next to Logan's head and lets her hand rest on his cheek for a few seconds. His eyelids flutter slightly and she whispers six words, each syllable an attempt at fighting back the panic twisting through her insides. All this time she's been telling him he's going to get himself killed and in all actuality, she's the one who's making it happen.

_Oh god._

"You are not going to die."

She wants to make sure it sticks. Because regardless of how much of a jackass he can be without even trying, no matter how many times he's hurt her, this could hurt so, so much worse. She's through with people leaving. And even if she won't admit it to herself most of the time, even though he has this habit of breaking her heart just when she thinks things might be okay again, she needs him, whether to exchange barbs or kiss her senseless. He can't do that if he's dead.

_Oh god._

"Logan. Logan, you are not going to die. You're not going to die. Logan. _You're not dying_."

He looks up at her, fishes for something witty and snarky, tries to just _sit up_, but all he manages is a feeble, "Okay." If the blood in his shirt was in his brain, he might be able to appreciate the look she's giving him now, so far past concerned that the word doesn't even come close to covering it.

She swallows a sob, because since when does Logan Echolls agree with what she says? Bunching up her jacket and pressing it against his abdomen, she barely even registers the red soaking through the cream fabric. His entire body flinches under her touch and she has to resist the impulse to pull back. His hand covers hers, cold and raw and sweaty, and she concentrates on the fact that she can feel a faint pulse where his wrist hits her knuckles.

"Where is that ambulance?" Her eyes scan the rooftop, as if she expects it to come careening out of the shadows. She lets her gaze fall back to his face, a slight shade of blue in the dim moonlight. His eyes are shut, and even though she can feel the struggle of his chest rising and falling, every muscle in her body clenches. _Make sure he does not lose consciousness_.

"Logan!"

He opens his eyes and slowly meets hers. "What?"

She pushes a little harder and he clenches his jaw. "You should… talk to me."

He takes a deep, ragged breath. "I don't feel much like chatting right now."

"I know, Logan. But I need you to stay here. With me." She tries to hide it, but desperation is laced in each word, hanging heavy in the mist of her breath.

"I really don't think I'm going anywhere at the moment." Veronica's hands may be nearly ripping him in two, but the pain is good. He has practice with pain. It keeps things focused, helps him concentrate. Veronica's hair slips from her shoulders and sticks to his lips and he has to suppress the urge to laugh, because even now, with a bullet lodged in the muscles of his stomach, all he can think about is kissing her senseless. "What happened, anyway?"

"What?" Pain shoots through her toes so she shifts slightly, twisting her legs together Indian style.

"Beaver blew up the bus?"

"Yeah." She closes her eyes, wills the tears to stop coming. "He blew up the bus, murdered Curly Moran. He… raped me." The words choke out and they don't even cover everything he did but it seems like enough for Logan to know now, the trifurcate of Cassidy's sins. She remembers him balanced on the ledge, falling apart, feeling just the tiniest bit _sorry_ for him, and she wants to throw up.

"Wha-when? He raped you. He _raped _you?" Logan's vision is suddenly sharpening and he clenches his hand around the two that are pressing against the hole in his stomach.

She shuts her eyes again. "At Shelly Pomroy's. Sophomore year."

"That _bastard_." If he weren't already dead, smeared across the hood of a car, Logan's pretty sure he'd kill Beaver himself, bullet wound or no. He glances up at her, concern etched across every feature.

"Logan, stop looking at me like that. You're the one who's bleeding. And you need to calm down. The faster your heart beats… the more blood you'll lose."

"Why?" Logan's trying to concentrate on her sparkling eyes but that black is invading his vision again.

"Why'd he blow up the bus? Because…" Her lungs fumble for a breath and she turns her jacket over, puts all her weight into stopping the blood flow. "Woody molested him. When he was younger. Molested Peter and Marcos, too. And they wanted to tell the world but he didn't want anyone to know. So… he blew them up."

"Jesus Christ." Logan manages around the teeth clacking together in his mouth. It's early June but he feels like it's below freezing. In fact, he doesn't remember ever feeling this cold. He can't stop shivering, can't even begin to process what she's telling him. Veronica searches the rooftop again, begging for a paramedic, anyone, to appear and put everything back together. Logan tries to match his breathing with hers. "Veronica..." She's swimming above him, hair glowing and cheeks shining, and a sob catches in his throat.

"Logan, don't." She knows what he's going to say and she's afraid that if she lets him, it'll be goodbye.

"Remember the Sadie Hawkins dance?"

Veronica nods. It's all she _can _do.

"When we danced…" The chattering of his teeth sounds almost violent now; she's practically pressing her ear against his lips just to understand what he's saying. "God, I wanted to kiss you so bad."_ I want to kiss you right now. Kiss me. Please, kiss me, Veronica. I love you and you need to kiss me right now because everything's too dark and I can't feel my fingers._

Her lungs haven't been working for a while now and her chest stretches tight, burns, and though she promised the last time she'd never cry over this boy again, the tears won't stop falling. _You can't die_. Watching him slowly fade is absolutely killing her.

"Please don't die," she pleads, and Logan's positive it's the most beautiful thing he's ever heard. And then they hear it.

Through the car alarm that still hasn't stopped, their mingled mismatched breaths, tears tracking down cheeks, the racing of their clumsy hearts cuts a wailing siren. The ambulance.

"They're coming," she murmurs, resting her forehead against his, wet eyelashes whispering across his cheek. "Everything's going to be fine." And for once, for a few seconds, she actually lets herself believe it.

When they're finally loading Logan into the ambulance, red lights flashing and casting strange shadows across their faces, she won't let go of him and he won't stop apologizing. For Alternaprom and Kendall, for Hannah, for having a gun at The River Styx, for being a complete ass when she was with Duncan, for last summer, for the way he treated her after Lilly, for eating the last piece of pizza some night that Veronica can't even remember.

"Logan, shut up." She still hasn't stopped crying, but at least she's breathing again. The sudden rush of air to her brain and the pulsing shadows are making the parking lot spin. Someone boosts her into the ambulance and she watches as they check his vitals, give him oxygen, ask him questions he answers with the smallest trace of snark that makes Veronica's heart swell a few sizes. A paramedic swipes her left eyebrow with alcohol then sticks a bandage over it, cleans her lip that got cut somehow, examines the finger print bruises scattered across her arm. And the whole time, his eyes stay glued to hers, she grips his hand like it's the only thing keeping her from crumbling to pieces.

The paramedic is talking to them but Logan feels like he's underwater. He only hears "so lucky", "could have bled to death", "surgery". Veronica winds their fingers even tighter and bites her lip.

Everything's happening in flashes: Logan's in the ambulance, he's being pushed through the doors, he's speeding down the hallway backwards, staring up at the ceiling. Veronica fights to keep pace with the stretcher until they reach the cut-off point, the tape on the floor she can't cross.

He tries to tug her fingers but he's so exhausted, blinking is almost impossible. "If I don't—"

"Logan. Seriously. Stop." She wipes her eyes for the millionth time and lightly rubs her thumb over his ripped knuckles.

"I… I'm so sorry. About everything." he croaks, tears beading in the corners of his eyes. He has to make her understand because he's afraid it's his last chance.

"Would you stop apologizing? I think we're more than even." There's a lump in her throat she's pretty sure has become permanent. "Logan, you saved my life."

He forces his eyes open so he can memorize the layers of gratitude, worry, hope and maybe even love swirling with the tears and blue of her gaze. At the Camelot she was perfectly fine, he was trying to work up the courage to jump off a bridge instead of protecting her from Aaron, and it was his fault in the first place she was pressed between a pool table and a buzzing tattoo needle at The River Styx. It may not be his first rescue attempt, but it's the only time it's actually counted, the only time he's been there when she really, truly needed it. And the sticky, bloody hole in his abdomen seems a worthy trade for the girl twisting her fingers with his and staring at him like she might actually care if he wakes up after all this.

"We need to get him into surgery."

Panic is eating through her insides again and Veronica's afraid to let go, because who's to say that he'll come back? Before he knows what's happening, without really even knowing what she's doing, she brushes her lips against his and relaxes her fingers, slips from his grip and disappears. Then the stretcher is moving again and there's nothing to memorize except the pattern of light and shadow across the hallway ceiling. Logan finally lets his eyes drift shut, so he can watch on repeat, in slow-motion, those blue eyes inches from his, her split lip melting against his own.

A nurse leads Veronica away from him, into a waiting room full of faceless people who won't stop staring at the crying, shivering girl who can't break the habit of clenching her now-empty hand. She lowers herself into a chair, stares blankly at a year-old _Cosmo_ that somehow ends up in her lap. She picks gravel from her palms, tries to clean the dried blood from under her fingernails until she understands that it's Logan's and he's unconscious right now and if he doesn't end up okay she probably won't either. Every episode she's ever watched of_ ER_, _Scrubs_, _General Hospital_, and_ Extreme Makeover _flashes through her mind and she can practically see him, draped across a bed, silver tools glinting in the harsh fluorescent light, three pairs of hands fishing around in those abs that she's been itching to touch for so long now.

Another pair of hands running along his stomach flashes through her mind and she realizes that she doesn't even care anymore. That feels so long ago and since he just risked his life to save hers, it hardly seems all that important of an issue. And every word she said that morning still rings true. She doesn't want to lose him from her life. She can't handle that again, can't survive someone else leaving her.

Not for the first time, Veronica's wondering how it ended up this way, how it always ends up with her crying in a hospital, waiting in a hard plastic chair for someone she cares about—okay, fine, loves—to wake up. A string of names parade through her head, a tally of the lives Neptune has damaged and claimed, fully or not: Lilly, Logan, Duncan, Lianne, Keith, _Me_, Meg and all those kids on the bus, Cassidy, Mac, _oh God, Mac_. It's endless, they're all running together and her head hurts and everyone is fucked, fucked up, fumbling for some sense of normalcy they're each perfectly aware they will never find. The ones who left couldn't really escape and the ones they left behind are trapped forever.

She doesn't bite her nails then, she attacks them, cracking the polish and ripping apart her cuticles until they're crying blood and mixing with Logan's and she can taste it all in her mouth, metallic and warm. It reminds her of the jacket she left on the roof that she never wants to see again, heavy and cold and staining the concrete. She can smell it. She's suffocating from the smell of too much blood and Logan was shot and Cassidy is—_was_—a murdering rapist. She jumps from her hard plastic chair and sprints to the doors, pushes against the cold glass and leans against the lit-up Emergency Room sign, heaving. Her body has finally run out of tears but she can't run away from waking up without her underwear, all that blood, Cassidy jumping from a fucking hotel roof. Lamb's going to find her soon and she'll have to relive it all again. Not that it isn't already stuck in her head, burned behind her eyelids.

An angry growl of thunder makes Veronica jump and she almost bites her tongue. She breathes deep, because now she only smells a black sky threatening rain, and for a few seconds time stops, she can breathe, her brain is blissfully empty. And then it all falls apart, huge cold drops stinging her eyes and dripping into her ears. She stands there, head titled back, until everything clears, Logan's blood washes from her hands and the stain on the roof fades. When she goes back inside the faceless people avert their stares and she slumps into the chair, puddles tracing her path from the door.

She flips through the _Cosmo_ without reading anything, water dripping from her chin turning the pages soggy. She remembers that she doesn't have her phone and starts worrying about her dad worrying about her. She twists a sopping strand of hair around her finger until the tip turns blue. She counts the ceiling tiles, prays with each one that he's going to be okay and hopes that for once, just this once, her prayers will be answered.

And then a doctor is standing in front of her, smiling kindly and she melts into the hard plastic chair because he wouldn't be smiling like that if Logan didn't make it. She can't understand a word he's saying so she just blurts, "Is he…?" And when the doctor smiles again and tells her he's fine she hugs him, soaking his scrubs, but he doesn't say anything and she doesn't notice.

Somehow, later, she ends up in front of his room and she cautiously peeks in. He's still unconscious and a million tubes are trailing from his arms, but the beeping of the heart monitor is even and sure and it's the most beautiful thing she's ever heard. His chest rises and falls slowly, calmly. Veronica drags a chair to his side and gently takes his hand, presses her lips to the bandaged knuckles, lines her palm against his. Concentrates on the faint pulse in his wrist beating against her own. They probably aren't okay, but they're alive, and that's good enough for now.


End file.
